A lot depends on the alternator. Delco 1117140 puts out 40 amps at 1100rpm, 126@2500; 1100741 36amps @800rpm. Do some looking around on internet or an auto electric shop, because alternators come in all ratings depending on applications. Police cars and taxis need lots of amp at idle so are built different ( wye vs delta winding, etc.). Also the field winding will take 2-4 amps of the output.

Agree with EspressoDude, depends on the alternator. I have a turbine but it uses a PMA, permanent magnet alternator, that I got from this place ...works very well. they have blade kits too. I used to use a big DC motor but like the PMA better.

Tiahaar wrote:Agree with EspressoDude, depends on the alternator. I have a turbine but it uses a PMA, permanent magnet alternator, that I got from this place ...works very well. they have blade kits too. I used to use a big DC motor but like the PMA better.

Cool stuff there Tiahaar!!!

Black Rock City Welding and Repair. The Night Time Warming Station.

Card Carrying Member BRCCP.

When you pass the 4th "bridge out!" sign; the flaming death is all yours.-Knowmad-

Windy Nation is right here in Ventura and they build their PMA's for marine use. In other words, they are sealed 3 phase alternators. If they can survive ocean mist, I think the playa should be a breeze. The entire turbine is stainless steel and aluminum. I'll be bringing mine to the playa this year for the first time. I plugged it into my solar array for a hybrid system. Hopefully I'll be charging my batteries day AND night this year!

How did you guys' wind turbines do? I never got around to putting mine up this year. It has one unfortunate characteristic...being mounted directly through the bus roof and with the mast bolted to the floor, mine transmits generator hum all through the rig and I haven't had much luck dampening it. May try some rubber isolation pads or somesuch next.

This year I used construction scaffolding to support my shade tarp, and now I'm thinking such scaffolding could be used to support other Stuff. I put the legs on pads of plywood to keep them from sinking, and I drove sturdy anchors in the ground, with ratchet straps, to keep it all in place. Seemed quite sturdy.

Typically, one unit of scaffolding measures 5 feet by 7 feet, or by 10 feet, and 5 feet tall. These units stack on top of each other, and they can be tied together into larger assemblies pretty much any way you want.

We had three sufficiently windy days/nights that provided more power than we used. On average, we were consuming 300 Watts per hour for twelve hours each day. Between the solar and wind charging the 5kW bank of batteries and a second solar array that serviced individual camper's needs, we ran our gas generator 3-5 hours per day.

We had two 1200 watt coffee makers which required generator time to operate in the morning anyway. We also found out the Sawsall is 1200 watts. My inverter is only 1000 watts on the battery bank.

Overall, I was very pleased with the performance of the setup. Our wind tower was a combination of tethers to anchors plus a steel pipe frame which also supported the solar panels.

You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

some seeing eye wrote:Thanks for the wind generator information. Do we have a BRC weather station that gathers wind speed, temperature, humidity, insolation, even visibility on a minute by minute basis?

Not sure I'd want to hang a wind plant on a scaffold. People climb them and do stupid and/or larcenous things. Pole stood off from a corner, maybe, but wouldn't you want it pretty well-insulated from your dwelling space?

I used a ring of scaffold for the '98 Cafe. Near-disaster, because I was forced into renting them from a shady outfit out of Reno that delivered a pile of mismatched bent-up frames, so the entire structure ended up six feet shorter than we planned. Pinned the scaffold by wrapping w/ wire to t-stakes, and stretched road cloth over the top tied off to recycled elevator wire rope anchored to ground augers. Got her done with a lot of help, only cost a few hundred dollars in materials, then we got bitched out by the priss-pot cafe manager who showed up days later. Did have the satisfaction of helping guide the 2000 Cafe design along the same general template, but with more manageable materials. Plus, it has an Oculus.

A lot of stuff in '96 was scaffold. The Helco office tower was 6-tier scaffold hung with painted panels, and the Cafe was another tall scaffold tower draped with a couple of ratty cargo parachutes.

Just rambling.... I dislike scaffold for camp use, but I managed to accumulate a bunch of 1-1/2" pipe and scaffold clamps over the years since '96 that work like Tinkertoys.

A car alternator is the first thing that all of us try on the journey to wind power, and it is usually a short stop, because a car alternator wants higher RPMs than you're likely to sustain for any length of time. A low-speed, high voltage motor out of an old tape drive is about the best thing you'll find off the shelf. I had a friend give me a pair of 36vdc motors from a tape drive, but you can also get them on ebay for about $30 last time I checked. The best solution of course, is to wind your own 3-phase alternator like Hugh Piggott suggests. He's something of an icon in wind power, and I'd read his site from top to bottom if you're genuinely interested in extracting usable power and not just having a science project: http://www.scoraigwind.com/

VAWT performs better with low wind speeds and changes in direction, HAWT is easier to get high enough off the ground that you don't have to worry about low wind speeds and changes in direction. The most efficient production systems are all HAWT, because the relative ease of lifting them high.

It seems like this issue, EL-wire, and generators (including boxing them) are common enough topics that we should just put some guides together to keep everyone from having to reinvent the wheel. I put together an RV guide a while back and got it sticky-ed. Perhaps its time one of us does the same for wind power and generator power.

I know this thread is a couple months old but I don't see the point in starting a new one for the same topic. I plan to make a cooler stereo for around camp and am trying to figure out the best way to recharge the battery. I have a PM motor out of a scooter (MY1016) and have come down to either a bike powered generator or a wind generator. I've found online that these work fair enough for generating power and I will have to get an inverter to drop it down to 12v instead of the 24v. Any suggestions on a method? If I went with wind powered I would have to buy two battery's so one would charge while the other is being used but I think with the bike I could set it up to charge it in the set up. Completely open to other ideas, just need to figure out recharging the battery before I take the time and money to build the stereo.

The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.

I have built a bike powered generator where the rear wheel rides on an alternator pulley. Great for losing weight and building quads(if you can get enough electrolytes)

As a wild guess the scooter motor is about 1/4 horsepower. from wikipedia:

When considering human-powered equipment, a healthy human can produce about 1.2 hp briefly (see orders of magnitude) and sustain about 0.1 hp indefinitely; trained athletes can manage up to about 2.5 hp briefly[12] and 0.3 hp for a period of several hours.

A person will not be able to power the generator for very long, probably marginally enough to power the stereo; and likely to be a health risk if not fully acclimated to playa conditions.

Thanks EspressoDude, that saves me a lot of time in setting up the bike system for a test. I found a site that said they use them for that but they also said they have a bunch of them with multiple people peddling.

The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.